UI graduate writes of growing up on reservation

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – As a kid growing up on a Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of New Mexico, Deborah Taffa's parents sheltered her as long as they could from the gruesome details of the history between the U.S. government and American Indian tribes.

It wasn't until as a 17-year-old public high school student she sat in classrooms and learned about the Trail of Tears and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

“I had never seen it written in such detail where it hit me that it was an institutional decision made by the government that, `Yes, we will do these things to these people.' It felt like a huge betrayal,” said the 43-year-old writer, whose maiden name is Jackson, after former U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who oversaw much of the forced tribal resettlement.

The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that what followed were more than two decades of struggle – including hospitalization for depression as a teenager – but also exploration and discovery, all of which are chronicled in Taffa's upcoming book about growing up on a reservation under often misguided federal government programs.

Taffa, a Master of Fine Arts candidate in nonfiction writing, is among the nearly 5,200 University of Iowa students who graduated last weekend. Though she's in a field that's widely considered less practical than, say, engineering or finance, she has secured a teaching position: she'll serve as an adjunct professor at Webster University in St. Louis, Mo.

Taffa has been a “leading spirit” for her peers in the program, said associate nonfiction writing professor John D'Agata, Taffa's main thesis adviser.

“What I am most impressed by in her work, however, is the level of craft,” he said. “It's on the level of just her artistic abilities as a writer. What I mean by that is she writes a kind of essay or a kind of memoiristic, personal narrative that is wryly observational about the world and yet deeply, deeply vulnerable intellectually and emotionally.”

The book has somewhere between 50 and 75 pages left to be refined, and Taffa said she expects to publish it in the fall. She leaves Iowa City on June 1.

While for other UI graduates, summer holds the promise of relaxation, Taffa will be traveling to Turkey and Greece. In fact, she's been touring all corners of the world since she was in her early 20s, and having five kids hasn't stymied her travel plans. She's been everywhere from Maine and Alaska to West Africa and Indonesia, where she met her husband, who grew up in Italy.

It's travel, Taffa said, that ultimately healed her depression as a teenager. It helped her see the commonalities she shares with others, and learning about their difficult histories made her once again happy to be American.

“It made me feel less precious about my own problems,” Taffa said.

Taffa's complicated views on her ancestry are a central theme in her writing. She said she struggles with the idea of American Indians being what she calls a “museum culture,” reserved to exhibits with stuffed bears and plastic-looking figures hunting bison with bows and arrows. While comforting, it's no longer reality, she said.

“Anybody who pretends that they are still that, they're not being fully honest in their public persona,” Taffa said. “You do see a lot of Native American writers who come out and talk about mother earth and father sky, but they're shopping at Target just like everybody else.”

But not everyone agrees with her. Taffa often gets backlash from those who say she's turned her back on her heritage by living off the reservation. She pictures this dynamic like a tree with traditionalists as the roots and the progressives as the branches: The only thing that kills it is chopping it at the middle.

“So it's always a dance and shuffle and balance that has to be maintained, and sometimes I lost sight of what's most important,” Taffa said. “I think everybody does. I swing back and forth, but my core is still very dedicated to Native America.”

David Hamilton, who retired a year ago after 37 years of teaching in UI's Department of English, much of that in the Nonfiction Writing Program, said the professional landscape for writers today is much different from when he began his professorship.

When he started out, Hamilton said it was fairly easy to become a professor. Now, it's sporadic. Taffa's situation is unique, he said.

“There aren't a whole lot of faculty jobs out there,” Hamilton said. “When you have 10 or 12 people graduating in a year, we're pretty fortunate for one or two to grab such a position right away. Some of them who hang on find one in another few years, but most people have to be looking in other areas of life.”

Today's graduates also face increasing pressure to specialize their subject area at the outset of their career. In the past, a professor could begin his or her career as a generalist and specialize later on, he said.

Taffa's career path is much different from her peers in the Nonfiction Writing Program, many of whom are in their 20s. At their age, she was raising children, which she did full-time for 15 years, as well as traveling at any opportunity. She embarked on a professional career just six years ago, when she enrolled at Webster University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 2010. From there, it was straight to Iowa.

“It's going to be a long haul for the next 15 to 20 years,” she said, “because for so long I was changing diapers and thinking about this.”

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Information from: Iowa City Press-Citizen, http://www.press-citizen.com/